Giving Back

As the Indianapolis Colts begin Week 5 in the NFL and the New York Yankees try to figure out how they lost to the Detroit Tigers, I am sick at home with a cold.

I mostly have a stuffed up nose and have developed a bit of a cough but it is nothing too major. In fact, I am quite proud of myself for handling it so well.

In the past, I have resorted to acting like a 5-year-old as most of us guys tend to do when they become physically ill. This time, I have been taking it in stride by getting plenty of vitamins, antibiotics, and bed rest.

The beauty about bed rest is that it allows me some free time to think which not only helps to clear my mind but takes my mind off of the sickness. These are my thoughts.

In what seems to be a state of nothing, I tend to look around my room when I am thinking. My little statue of Abraham Lincoln caught my eye today. It was originally given to me by my mother from the time she visited Washington, D.C. as a little girl and I have kept it ever since. Time, of course, has worn it down from what it once was but it is still a great treasure in my mind.

I started thinking about a story I was once told about Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address. The story was not about the address itself but moreover how Lincoln developed a case of mild smallpox shortly after delivering it.

In the days before the Secret Service, it was incredibly easy to walk into the White House (Executive Mansion as it was called back then) and converse with the President. Many of those who entered the Executive Mansion were often times office-seekers.

While meeting with such a gentleman one day, President Lincoln was told that his case of smallpox was highly contagious causing the office-seeker to leave very abruptly. At which time, Lincoln, in his usual quick witted manner, offered a humorous anecdote.

Of course, my predicament is not quite as severe as that of President Lincoln. However, from the perspective of someone who wants to give something back to his community, I am proud to utter the same words that President Lincoln offered so many years ago:

"There is one good thing about this. Now I have something I can give everybody."