One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.  We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And, I mean, he was really friendly.
So I asked, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"
This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call,
"The Law of the Garbage Truck."
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.
As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they?ll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on.
Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.
The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets,
so..... "Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't."
Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you take it!
Submitted by James Twiggs

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 7/3/2008

FATHER & SON FAREWELL

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 6/26/2008

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 6/19/2008

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 6/12/2008

Hey Moby,

Want to tell you first that I recently moved here from New England and I'm glad I found a great morning show for my ride to work.

I ride a motorcycle to work on nice days and I can't believe how oblivious people are, or how much they just don't care. Do they realize that there is an actual LIFE on those two wheels and deserve every bit of courtesy someone driving a car gets, if not more?  Do you know what it's like to get hit by a cigarette butt or a cardboard cup-holder at 65 miles an hour?   Do you know what kind of hazard that is for us?  I thought that piece of cardboard was going to be the death of me!   Just yesterday, I came close to being hit twice, so close to being backed over that I didn't even have room to put my kickstand down and have a chat with the apparently blind and deaf driver, considering I was directly behind him laying on my horn.  I understand that turn signals, apparently, are completely optional in this state, so I?ve come to expect the occasional lane surfer.  But before you decide to change lanes look twice?..yes, you might have to put your cell phone down to do this!

I just want people to be more aware when they share the road with a motorcycle.  A single light = a life, a son, a daughter, husband or wife.  I know my parents would be devastated if their daughter was killed on her motorcycle due to the carelessness or just plain stupidity of another driver.

Ride safe, Yeah baby!

Christine Sinko Norcross

Welcome south, lady. I'll be looking out for you.

Just so you know, I think you might have just written tomorrow's Soap Box.

Give a holler sometime.

Yeah baby,

MOBY

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 6/5/2008

Dear Moby:
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, First Chief Justice John Jay, names synonymous with the spirit of the Founding fathers of the U.S.A.  Over 200 years ago they shook off the chains of tyranny from Great Britain By divine call Citing 27 biblical violations they wrote the Declaration of Independence with liberty and justice for all.
But something happened since Jefferson called the Bible the cornerstone For American liberty then put it in our schools as a light, or since "Give me liberty or give me death". Patrick Henry said our country was founded on the Gospel of Jesus.
We eliminated God from the equation of American life, thus eliminating the reason this nation first began. From beyond the grave I hear the voices of our founding fathers pleading you need God in America again
Of the 55 men who formed the Constitution, Fifty-two were active members of their church. Founding fathers like Noah Webster who wrote the first dictionary could literally quote the Bible chapter and verse
James Madison said, "We've staked our future on our ability to fallow The Ten Commandments with all our heart"
These men believed you couldn't even call yourself an American if you subvert the Word of God In his farewell address, George Washington said, "You can't have National morality apart from religious principle," and it's true 'Cause right now we have nearly 150,000 kids carrying guns To these war zones we call public schools.
In the '40's and '50's student problems were chewing gum and talking. Now, rape and murder are the trend. The only way this nation can even hope to last this decade, we need God in America again
Sincerely,
Randy Benson
Hoschton

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 5/29/2008

THE OLD FISHERMAN

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic Entrance Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out patients at the clinic. One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. 

"Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face?lopsided from swelling, red and raw. Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning." He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success, no one seemed to have a room. "I guess it's my face...I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..."

 For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning." I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.

 I went inside and finished getting supper. When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us "No thank you. I have plenty." And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.

 He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with a thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. 

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.   When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair." He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind." I told him he was welcome to come again.

 On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or

vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed.

 Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. "Did you keep that awful looking man last night?

I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!" Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God. 

Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!" My friend changed my mind. "I ran short of pots," she explained, "and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail. It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden." 

She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman.  "He won't mind starting in this small body."

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 5/22/2008

THE SPARROW AT STARBUCK'S

It was chilly in Manhattan but warm inside the Starbucks shop on 51st Street and Broadway. Early November weather in New York City holds only the slightest hint of the bitter chill of late December and January, but it's enough to send the masses crowding indoors to vie for available space and warmth.
For a musician, it's the most lucrative Starbucks location in the world, I'm told, and consequently, the tips can be substantial if you play your tunes right. Apparently, we were striking all the right chords that night, because our basket was almost overflowing.
It was a fun, low-pressure gig - I was playing keyboard and singing backup for my friend who also added rhythm with an arsenal of percussion  instruments. We mostly did pop songs from the '40s to the '90s with a few
original tunes thrown in. During our emotional rendition of the classic, 
'If You Don't Know Me by Now,' I noticed a lady sitting in one of the lounge chairs across from me. She was swaying to the beat and singing along.
After the tune was over, she approached me. 'I apologize for singing along on that song. Did it bother you?' she asked.
?No,' I replied. 'We love it when the audience joins in. Would you like to sing up front on the next selection?'
To my delight, she accepted my invitation.
'You choose,' I said. 'What are you in the mood to sing?'
'Well. .. do you know any hymns?'
Hymns? This woman didn't know who she was dealing with. I cut my teeth on hymns. Before I was even born, I was going to church. I gave our guest singer a knowing look. 'Name one.'
?Oh, I don't know. There are so many good ones. You pick one.'
'Okay,' I replied. 'How about 'His Eye is on the Sparrow'?'
My new friend was silent, her eyes averted. Then she fixed her eyes on mine again and said, 'Yeah. Let's do that one.'
She slowly nodded her head, put down her purse, straightened her jacket and faced the center of the shop. With my two-bar setup, she began to sing.
Why should I be discouraged?
Why should the shadows come?
The audience of coffee drinkers was transfixed. Even the gurgling noises of the cappuccino machine ceased as the employees stopped what they were doing to listen. The song rose to its conclusion.
I sing because I'm happy;
I sing because I'm free.

For His eye is on the sparrow

And I know He watches me.
When the last note was sung, the applause crescendoed to a deafening roar that would have rivaled a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall.
Embarrassed, the woman tried to shout over the din, 'Oh, y'all go back to your coffee! I didn't come in here to do a concert! I just came in here to get somethin' to drink, just like you!' But the ovation continued. I embraced my new friend.
'You, my dear, have made my whole year! That was beautiful!'
'Well, it's funny that you picked that particular hymn,' she said.
'Why is that?'
'Well . ..' she hesitated again, 'that was my daughter's favorite song.'
'Really!' I exclaimed.
'Yes,' she said, and then grabbed my hands. By this time, the applause had subsided and it was business as usual. 'She was 16. She died of a brain tumor last week.'
I said the first thing that found its way through my stunned silence.
'Are you going to be okay?'
She smiled through tear-filled eyes and squeezed my hands. 'I'm gonna be okay. I've just got to keep trusting the Lord and singing his songs, and everything's gonna be just fine.' She picked up her bag, gave me her card, and then she was gone.
Was it just a coincidence that we happened to be singing in that particular coffee shop on that particular November night? Coincidence that this wonderful lady just happened to walk into that particular shop?
Coincidence that of all the hymns to choose from, I just happened to pick
the very hymn that was the favorite of her daughter, who had died just the week before? I refuse to believe it.
God has been arranging encounters in human history since the beginning of time, and it's no stretch for me to imagine that he could reach into a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan and turn an ordinary gig into a revival. It was a great reminder that if we keep trusting him and singing his songs, everything's gonna be okay.
The next time you feel like GOD can't use you, just remember...
Noah was a drunk

Abraham was too old
Jacob was a liar

Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
Jonah ran from God
Zaccheus was too small
Lazarus was dead! !
No more excuses now!!
God can use you to your full potential. Besides you aren't the 
message, you are just the messenger

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 5/15/2008

Today is National Police Officer?s Memorial Day.
If you?ve listened to me for long, you know how supportive and dedicated I
am to those who have chosen law enforcement as a career. I?ve raised my
son to believe, and I?m raising my daughter to believe, if you can?t find mama
or daddy, and you?re in trouble, find a cop. They?ve always been taught by
their daddy, that behind that badge beats the heart of a friend.
Behind that badge is a man or woman sworn to ?protect and serve?.
Those just aren?t words, they?re a pledge and a duty cops assume every day
when they kiss their families good bye and pray it?s not for the last time. They
do it because they realize, its job that must be done, and if not by them, then
by whom? God bless them all for their choice. I believe that to have a real
friend, we must be a real friend. Police officers deserve our kindness, our
respect, and our friendship. If our children see us behaving this way, they?ll
behave this way themselves. It?s just a small peaceful thing to do. And
everybody wins.
As the dozens of officers killed in the line of duty this year are honored today
in our nations capitol, I?d like their brother officers to know that this radio
family also grieves for the loss, and love them for their bravery, their sense of
honor, commitment, their dedication, and devotion to duty.

Police Officers Prayer
Oh Almighty God, whose great power and eternal wisdom embraces the universe.
Watch over all policemen and law enforcement officers.
Father in Heaven please give them the strength, courage and perseverance to endure
The unjust condemnation, danger, and physical abuse to which they are
at times subjected.
We recommend them to your loving care because their duty is dangerous.
Dear God, grant these brave men & women your almighty protection,
Unite them safely with their families after duty has ended.
Amen

Small Town Soapbox,  Thursday 5/8/2008