I love this
Pat Wilson
pass it on.
Pat W
The Greatest
Little boy, in a baseball hat,
stands in the field, with his ball and bat.
Says "I am the greatest player of them all!"
He puts his bat on his shoulder,
and he tosses up his ball.
And the ball goes up, and the ball comes down,
and he swings his bat all the way around.
The world's so still you can hear the sound,
as the baseball falls, to the ground.
Now the little boy doesn't say a word...
Picks up his ball. He is undeterred.
Says, "I am the greatest there has ever been!"
And he grits his teeth. And he tries it again.
And the ball goes up, and the ball comes down,
and he swings his bat all the way around.
And the world's so still you can hear the sound,
as the baseball falls, to the ground.
He makes no excuses; he shows no fear
He just closes his eyes, and listens to the cheers.
Now the little boy, he adjusts his hat.
Picks up his ball. Stares at his bat.
Says "I am the greatest, and the game is on the line!"
So he gives his all, one last time.
And the ball goes up, like the moon so bright,
swings his bat, with all his might.
And the world's as still as still can be,
and the baseball falls; and that's strike 3.
Now it's supper time, and his momma calls.
Little boy starts home, with his bat and ball.
Says, "I am the greatest, that is a fact...
but even I didn't know, I could pitch like that!"
....Performed by Kenny Rogers
Joanne Cohen
This is too weird. I was just thinking YESTERDAY about posting this terrific
song! The metaphor of turning a negative into a positive and how this child
does it so naturally is so precious!
Um, Pat, do you believe in psychic connections? (private joke between me and
Pat!)
~jo
"Pat Wilson" <pwi...@neb.rr.com> wrote in message
news:ULIT8.37417$aE4.8...@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com...
jennybravo
--
xxxx
"Joanne Cohen" <joc...@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:w9MT8.48244$Uu2.8076@sccrnsc03...
>
>
> This is too weird. I was just thinking YESTERDAY about posting this
terrific
> song! The metaphor of turning a negative into a positive and how this
child
> does it so naturally is so precious!
*sheepish grin....I got just the opposite from this...I thought the kid was
doing exactly what he meant to do, and it was just from the outside that it
looked like he was messing up...LOL...but I guess that's because I always
have people trying to "fix" things that I have done on purpose...
Me to my husband...."Yes, dear, I know the clock in the living room is
wrong, and so is the one on the microwave. Or maybe it's the one in the
kitchen that's wrong and the microwave one is correct...I do that so I don't
know what time it really is. And if I'm not sure what time it is I am more
likely to be on time....And if I REALLY need to know what time it is I can
always check the one of clocks in the bedroom....now if I could only
remember which one...."
jennybravo
Pat Wilson
terrific
> song! The metaphor of turning a negative into a positive and how
this child
> does it so naturally is so precious!
>
> Um, Pat, do you believe in psychic connections? (private joke
between me and
> Pat!)
> ~jo
I interpreted it to say that kids know intuitively what their
strengths are.
Here's another poem that brought tears to my eyes
-- I call it The Problem With Schools Today.
Flowers Are Red by Harry Chapin
The little boy went first day of school.
He got some crayons and started to draw.
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw.
And the teacher said, "What you doin', young man."
"I'm paintin' flowers," he said.
She said, "It's not the time for art, young man,
And anyway flowers are green and red.
There's a time for everything, young man,
And a way it should be done.
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one."
And she said, "Flowers are red, young man.
Green leaves are green.
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen."
But the little boy said, "There are so many colors in the rainbow,
So many colors in the morning sun.
So many colors in the flower and I see every one."
Well the teacher said, "You're sassy.
There's ways that things should be.
And you'll paint flowers the way they are,
So repeat after me."
And she said, "Flowers are red, young man.
Green leaves are green.
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.
But the little boy said,
"There are so many colors in the rainbow,
So many colors in the morning sun.
So many colors in the flower and I see every one."
The teacher put him in a corner
She said, "It's for your own good.
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should."
Well, finally he got lonely.
Frightened thoughts filled his head.
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said...
And he said, "Flowers are red.
Green leaves are green.
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen."
Time went by like it always does,
And they moved to another town.
And the little boy went to another school,
And this is what he found.
The teacher there was smilin'.
She said, "Painting should be fun.
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one."
But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red.
And when the teacher asked him why,
This is what he said...
And he said, "Flowers are red.
Green leaves are green.
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.
....by Harry Chapin
Rach
Maryann
> --
> xxxx
> "Joanne Cohen" <joc...@attbi.com> wrote in message
> news:w9MT8.48244$Uu2.8076@sccrnsc03...
>
>>
>>This is too weird. I was just thinking YESTERDAY about posting this
>
> terrific
>
>>song! The metaphor of turning a negative into a positive and how this
>
> child
>
>>does it so naturally is so precious!
>
>
> *sheepish grin....I got just the opposite from this...I thought the kid was
> doing exactly what he meant to do, and it was just from the outside that it
> looked like he was messing up...LOL...but I guess that's because I always
> have people trying to "fix" things that I have done on purpose...
> Me to my husband...."Yes, dear, I know the clock in the living room is
> wrong, and so is the one on the microwave. Or maybe it's the one in the
> kitchen that's wrong and the microwave one is correct...I do that so I don't
> know what time it really is. And if I'm not sure what time it is I am more
> likely to be on time....And if I REALLY need to know what time it is I can
> always check the one of clocks in the bedroom....now if I could only
> remember which one...."
>
> jennybravo
>
until my husband decides to fix on of them and I get all messed up
because I think it's earlier than it really is LOL
Maryann
Joanne Cohen
Wonderful classic Harry song - I have it on CD - very powerful. I just sold
a copy of a photo I took of Happy in '82 when he sang at Boston University
(I went there undergrad). A friend of mine's best friend's dad was his cello
played....we sat right up front in the Case Auditorium. The woman who bought
it gave it to her hubby for Father's day - Harry had been his idol....
I still remember where I was, that hot summer's day, when I heard the
news....
Jo
MamaBenita
>
> Wonderful classic Harry song - I have it on CD - very powerful. I just
sold
> a copy of a photo I took of Happy in '82 when he sang at Boston University
> (I went there undergrad). A friend of mine's best friend's dad was his
cello
> played....we sat right up front in the Case Auditorium. The woman who
bought
> it gave it to her hubby for Father's day - Harry had been his idol....
> I still remember where I was, that hot summer's day, when I heard the
> news....
>
> Jo
I miss Harry, too. And I am glad he was here among us for his very short
time.
Hugs,
Benita
Hope Roohr
> Goodbye, Dr. Spock
> By Anna Quindlen
>
>
> NEWSWEEK October 2000 If not for the photographs I might
> have a hard time
> believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the
> swipe of dark bangs
> and the black button eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The
> placid baby with the
> yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy
> toddler with the lower
> lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin.
>
> ALL MY BABIES are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but
> in disbelief. I take
> great satisfaction in what I have today: three
> almost-adults, two taller than
> I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same
> books I do and have
> learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their
> opinion of them, who
> sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I
> choke and cry, who
> need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to
> keep their doors
> closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the
> bathroom, zip up their
> jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by
> themselves. Like the trick
> soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber duckie at
> its center, the baby
> is buried deep within each, barely discernible except
> through the unreliable
> haze of the past.
>
> Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished
> for me now.
> Penelope Leach. T. Berry Brazelton. Dr. Spock. The ones
> on sibling rivalry
> and sleeping through the night and early-childhood
> education, all grown
> obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moonîand Where the Wild
> Things Are, they are
> battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you
> flipped the pages
> dust would rise like memories.
>
> What those books taught me, finally, and what the women
> on the playground
> taught me, and the well-meaning relations what they
> taught me was that they
> couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising
> children is presented at
> first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice,
> until finally, far
> along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one
> knows anything. One
> child responds well to positive reinforcement, another
> can be managed only
> with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet
> trained at 3, his brother
> at 2. When my first child was born, parents were told to
> put Baby to bed on
> his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up.
> By the time my last
> arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of
> research on sudden
> infant death syndrome.
>
> To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is
> terrifying, and then
> soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself.
> Eventually the
> research will follow. First science told us they were
> insensate blobs. But we
> thought they were looking, and watching, and learning,
> even when they spent
> so much time hitting themselves in the face. And
> eventually science said that
> we were right, that important cognitive function began in
> early babyhood.
> First science said environment was the great shaper of
> human nature. But it
> certainly seemed as though those babies had distinct
> personalities, some
> contemplative, some gregarious, some crabby. And
> eventually science said that
> was right, too, and that they were hard-wired exactly as
> we had suspected.
>
> Still, the temptation to defer to the experts was huge.
> The literate parent,
> who approaches everything; cooking, decorating, life as
> though there were a
> paper due or an exam scheduled, is in particular peril
> when the kids arrive.
> How silly it all seems now, the obsessing about language
> acquisition and
> physical milestones, the riding the waves of normal,
> gifted, hyperactive, all
> those labels that reduced individuality to a series of
> cubbyholes. But I
> could not help myself. I had watched my mother casually
> raise five children
> born over 10 years, but by watching her I intuitively
> knew that I was engaged
> in the greatest and potentially most catastrophic task of
> my life. I knew
> that there were mothers who had worried with good reason,
> that there were
> children who would have great challenges to meet. We were
> lucky; ours were
> not among them. Nothing horrible or astonishing happened:
> there was hernia
> surgery, some stitches, a broken arm and a fuchsia cast
> to go with it.
>
> Mostly ours were the ordinary everyday terrors and
> miracles of raising a
> child, and our childrenís challenges the old familiar
> ones of learning to
> live as themselves in the world. The trick was to get
> past my fears, my ego
> and my inadequacies to help them do that. During my first
> pregnancy I picked
> up a set of old clothbound books at a flea market.
> Published in 1933, they
> were called Mother's Encyclopedia, and one volume
> described what a mother
> needs to be: psychologically good: sound, wholesome,
> healthy, unafraid, able
> to deal with the world and to live in this particular
> age, an integrated
> personality, an adjusted person. In a word, yow.
>
> It is good that we know so much more now, know that
> mothers need not be
> perfect to be successful. But some of what we learn is as
> pernicious as that
> daunting description, calculated to make us feel like
> failures every single
> day. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr.
> Brazeltonís wonderful
> books on child development, in which he describes three
> different sorts of
> infants: average, quiet and active. I was looking for a
> subquiet codicil for
> an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something
> wrong with his fat
> little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny
> little mind? Was he
> developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I
> insane? Last year he
> went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can walk
> just fine. He can
> walk too well. Every part of raising children at some
> point comes down to
> this: be careful what you wish for.
>
> Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe
> me, mistakes were
> made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember When
> Mom Did Hall of Fame.
> The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language,
> mine, not theirs. The
> times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late
> for preschool
> pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer
> camp. The day when the
> youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on
> her geography test,
> and I responded, What did you get wrong?(She insisted I
> include that.) The
> time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through
> speaker and then drove
> away without picking it up from the window. (They all
> insisted I include
> that.) I did not allow them to watcht he Simpsons for the
> first two seasons.
> What was I thinking?
>
> But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us
> make while doing
> this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is
> particularly clear now
> that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs.
> There is one picture
> of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in
> the shadow of the
> swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I
> could remember what
> we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded,
> and how they looked
> when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such
> a hurry to get on
> to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had
> treasured the doing
> a little more and the getting it done a little less.
>
> Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what
> was me and what was
> simply life. How much influence did I really have over
> the personality of the
> former baby who cried only when we gave parties and who
> today, as a teenager,
> still dislikes socializing and crowds? When they were
> very small, I suppose I
> thought someday they would become who they were because
> of what I'd done. Now
> I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because
> they demanded in a
> thousand ways that I back off and let them be.
>
> There was babbling I forgot to do, stimulation they never
> got, foods I meant
> to introduce and never got around to introducing. If a
> black-and-white mobile
> really increases depth perception and early exposure to
> classical music
> increases the likelihood of perfect pitch, I blew it. The
> books said to be
> relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was
> sometimes over the
> top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the
> three people I like
> best in the world, who have done more than anyone to
> excavate my essential
> humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was
> bound and determined to
> learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure
> out who the experts
> were.
>
=====
Kara Edin, Wonderful Person "It's What I Do"
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. All in one Place.
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"MamaBenita" <Ben...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:TLaU8.1579$ZQ2.70...@newssvr15.news.prodigy.com...
Pat Wilson
"Hope Roohr" <mama...@home.com> wrote in message
news:XnkU8.256979$6m5.2...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> Heres one that always chokes me up- Hope
> Goodbye, Dr. Spock
> By Anna Quindlen
Hope, thanks so much for posting this beautiful essay. I am going to
print it off and put it on my refrigerator door as a constant reminder
to "live in the moment!" It's been a mantra of mine off and on for
years -- lately, sad to say, more often off than on. Thanks for
putting it back front and center for me once again.
Pat W
Joanne Cohen
Dr Benjamin Spock and I went to the same private school - Hamden Hall
Country Day School..there are some wonderful old photos of him there as a
young boy, sitting in the same library as I did, many years earlier....
"Hope Roohr" <mama...@home.com> wrote in message
news:XnkU8.256979$6m5.2...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
Hope Roohr
you say, not lately! Its a good reminder too of "this too will pass" even
though I am no longer sure I know what that means. Hopenews:58lU8.5784$Uv.5...@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com...
Pat Wilson
> You are welcome. I love the piece but as far as staying in the
moment- as
> you say, not lately! Its a good reminder too of "this too will
pass" even
> though I am no longer sure I know what that means. Hope
Oh, Hope, you'll do ok and your daughter will be fine. I liked the
bit from the 1933 Mother's Encyclopedia describing what a mother needs
to be: psychologically good: sound, wholesome, healthy, unafraid, able
to deal with the world and to live in this particular age, an
integrated personality, an adjusted person. From what I have seen you
write so far, it sounds like you meet the above description. I'm glad
to meet you as we journey this road together.
Pat W
Hope Roohr
Re: That definition- that's because I don't present the screaming lunatic
side of myself on this message board- wouldnt wanna scare you folks away-
AHHH!!!!
I am SOOOO glad to have connected with you! Hope
"Pat Wilson" <pwi...@neb.rr.com> wrote in message
news:H8DU8.9466$Uv.9...@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com...
jennybravo
--
xxxx
"Maryann" <sable...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:3D1FE5C6...@rcn.com...
LOL....Do they ask you stuff like "What time is it in the kitchen?" LOL....
jennybravoakindredspirit
Derek Wills
Derek
LisaViger
>From: "Pat Wilson" pwi...@neb.rr.com
>Date: 6/30/02 9:15 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <QHQT8.38859$aE4.8...@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com>
Wow, this reminded me of when I was young.....first grade. I liked black
and white (still do) and when it was "painting time," I did a huge bouquet of
black flowers (on a white background, of course).
The teachers were horrified, called in my parents for a conference, and
made me see the school psychologist.
The reason (I think) we find ideas like the above so poignant is that they
are so very true (although maybe not so literally).
Lisa (and I still like B&W and never bought a coloring book for either of my
kids...just lots and lots of paint and paper)