day

So once in every year we throng Upon a day apart, To praise the Lord with feast and song In thankfulness of heart.

When we were growing up years ago in our sleepy Southern town, most of the adults seemed rather staid and sober. There was, however, one memorable exception: Miss Lucy, a widow lady who lived with her prim and proper sister, Clara. But Miss Lucy was full of charm and sparkle and enthusiasm. One day Miss Lucy-in her 60s asserted that she could still stand on her head. When we looked doubtful, she clamped her skirt between her knees and did so, beaming at us upside down. "Oh, Lucy," said Clara. "Do be your age!" Miss Lucy righted herself. "What sort of nonsense is that?" she asked. "How can anyone be anything but their age? The trick is to love your age. Love it when you're young and strong and foolish. Love it when you're old and wise. Love it in the middle when the challenges come and you can solve some of them, maybe most of them. If you love your age, you'll never go around wishing you were some other age. Think about that, Clara."

Strictly Germ-Proof The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gambolled up; They looked upon the creature with a loathing undisguised; It wasn't disinfected and it wasn't sterilised. They said it was microbic and a hotbed of disease; They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees; They froze it in a freezer that was cold as banished hope And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap. In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears; They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears; They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand And 'lected it a member of the Fumigated Band. There's not a micrococcus in the garden where they play; They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day; And each imbibes his rations from a hygienic cup- The Bunny and The Baby and The Prophylactic Pup.

There was a young lady named Bright, Whose speed was far faster than light: She set out one day In a relative way, And returned home the previous night.

Centuries earlier, Job suffered immeasurable losses. His wealth was stripped from him; his family destroyed. Finally, after all else was gone, he was stricken with boils and failing health. Every day and every hour he suffered physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. His friends mocked him, but Job remained faithful. He emphatically declared, For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God. (Job 19: 25-26.)

THE MAN WHO THINKS HE CAN: If you think you are beaten, you are, If you think that you dare not, you don't, If you'd like to win, but you think you can't, It's almost certain you won't. If you think you'll lose, you've lost, For out in the world you'll find, Success begins with a fellow's will, It's all in the state of mind. If you think you are outclassed, you are, You've got to think high to rise, You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man, But soon or late the man who wins Is the man who thinks he can. NOTE: A copy of this inspirational poem hangs on the wall in Arnold Palmer's office. Arnie has made it a practice to read the poem at the start of each day. It serves him as a source of inspiration, courage and motivation that enables him to attack whatever problems and challenges that day might bring. It works for Arnie. It will work for you. Try it.

The evolution of species was the subject of conjecture long before Darwin's day. Here Aristotle attributes to Empedocles an evolutionary doctrine strikingly reminiscent of natural selection: "Empedocles says that the greater part of the members of animals were generated by chance . . . What, then, hinders but that the parts in Nature may also thus arise [from necessity]? For instance, that the teeth should arise from necessity, the front teeth sharp and adapted to divide the food, the molars broad and adapted to breaking the food into pieces. It may be said that they were not made for this purpose, but that this purposive arrangement came about by chance; and the same reasoning is applied to other parts of the body in which subsistence for some purpose is apparent. And it is argued that where all things happened as if they were made for some purpose, being aptly united by chance, these were preserved, but such as were not aptly made, these were lost and still perish, according to what Empedocles says concerning the bull species with human heads. This, therefore, and similar reasoning, may lead some to doubt on this subject."

Aristotle suggests that the rotating Earth was a generally accepted tenet of Pythagorism: "While most of those who hold that the whole heaven is finite say that the earth lies at the center, the philosophers of Italy, the so-called Pythagoreans, assert the contrary. They say that in the middle there is fire, and that the earth is one of the stars, and by its circular motion round the center produces night and day."

This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought Should contrive our fees to pilfer, on who for his native land Never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand.

Spoken of the young Archimedes: . . . [he] was as much enchanted by the rudiments of algebra as he would have been if I had given him an engine worked by steam, with a methylated spirit lamp to heat the boiler; more enchanted, perhaps for the engine would have got broken, and, remaining always itself, would in any case have lost its charm, while the rudiments of algebra continued to grow and blossom in his mind with an unfailing luxuriance. Every day he made the discovery of something which seemed to him exquisitely beautiful; the new toy was inexhaustible in its potentialities.