Safety Tidbits: 6-30

Don’t Judge Too Quickly… better yet, Don’t Judge at all!

A lady in a worn, faded dress and her husband, in a threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked without an appointment into the outer office of the president of Harvard. The secretary knew at once these folks had no business at Harvard. She frowned.

“We want to see the president,” the man said softly.

“He’ll be busy all day,” the secretary snapped.

“We’ll wait,” the lady replied.  For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping the couple would get discouraged and go away. They didn’t. The secretary finally decided to disturb the president.

“Maybe if they just see you for a few minutes, they’ll leave,” she told him. He sighed and nodded. He didn’t have the time for them, but feared they’d never leave. The president strutted toward the couple.

The lady said “Our son attended Harvard for a year. He loved Harvard, and was very happy here. But about a year ago, he died. We would like to erect a memorial to him somewhere on campus.”

The president was shocked. “Madam,” he said gruffly “we can’t put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery”

“Oh, no,” the lady explained quickly. “We don’t want to erect a statue. We would give a building to Harvard.”

The president rolled his eyes, then exclaimed, “Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in just the physical plant here at Harvard!”

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. He could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, “Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don’t we just start our own?” Her husband nodded.

The president’s face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. The conversation was over…

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California, where they established the university that bears their name… a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

Life is about caring for people – for family, for friends, for co-workers, for your fellow man. 

We begin to truly live once we understand… Life is not about us; it is about others and what we can do to lessen their load. 

Ok, I made a difference today… did you?

Zero Injuries – No one gets hurt!

Be thankful for your allotment in an imperfect world.  Though better circumstances can be imagined, far worse are nearer misses than you probably care to realize. ―Richelle E. Goodrich

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Thanks for the share, WK!