Feel Good Fables
by
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Good Will Hiker
I had served our country in the military since turning eighteen and was about to retire after twenty-six years of faithful service. My training served me well as a communications specialist, and my high security clearance afforded me some very interesting insights. I am not at liberty to disclose anything, but I can tell you that the world is changing in ways hard to comprehend. With mass communications, cell phones, and the internet, the imagination diminishes. We live in times that are both incredibly intriguing and equally troubling, as I was soon to discover. Just ninety days away from returning to civilian life -- feeling like a fish out of water -- the countless resumes I had sent out had hardly drawn any meaningful replies.
At first, I did not give this snub much credence, but as days turned into months, I began to ponder my future. My big day came and went without much fanfare and I found myself scouring the want ads for a job. My retirement income was decent, but I have never been good at sitting around twiddling my thumbs. After several months of coming up empty, my wife convinced me it was time to take a break, and a trip. We loaded up our station wagon, took our two dogs, and headed west for some much needed rest and relaxation. While heading though N.E. Arkansas, we stopped at a campground just off the beaten path, and after securing our campsite, decided to take a long walk.
We were about two miles into an amazing walk through the foothills of the Ozarks when something quite incredible occurred. An older man and his wife were on the same trail and had stopped for a break; when his wife decided to explore, she slipped over a ledge, plummeting down some sharp jagged rocks. His attempts to reach her were not successful, as he unable to overcome the steep terrain. By the time we reached him, he was still frantically trying to reach her, but to no avail. My wife, a retired nurse, agreed to comfort him while I scaled down the jagged mountainside to her aid; she was not badly hurt, which surprised me, given the height of the fall and the rocky surroundings. Her ankle was severely twisted and she appeared to have a slight concussion, along with some abrasions. I was able to pick her up and decided it was best to descend to the riverbank several hundred feet below.
My wife safely led the man to where we were perched, and then attended to his wife's injured ankle. I left them behind and hurried back to the campsite office to call the local fire rescue squad and – happily - everyone returned to the campsite safely. We spent the next few days there to ensure they were going to be all right before we headed out. As we were leaving, he surprised me -- pleasantly -- by offering me a job; seems he owned a small communications company, run by his two sons. I stammered “Thanks” as he gave me his card, smiled warmly, and asked me to call him once we returned from our trip at the end of the month.
We later decided to accept his generous offer and relocate to Atlanta, Georgia. I have been with them for more than five rewarding years now.
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About the Book
Imagine the essence of each positive and negative learning experience of a person over a lifetime, as single grains of sand, gathered from a vast mystical beach.
Now imagine the positive grains separating from their negative counterparts, and being whisked to Earth in a magical whirlwind.
Envision these positive grains of sand being dynamically transformed and assembled into concise, readable, and useful contexts as they reach the Earth.
Now imagine these useful contexts being bound into book form with the lighthearted title – “Feel Good Fables.”
Picture yourself reading one or more of these concise fables (short stories imbued with a moral compass), as time permits, in either random or sequential fashion, as you prefer.
Now imagine your stresses easing and a sense of “feeling good” as you finish reading each fable.
Picture peace -- now imagine this peace enveloping your life…
Enjoy!
We hope you will take away some enjoyable and subtle -- if not invaluable -- insights from Feel Good Fables. We enjoyed incorporating memory shards and situations from both yesteryear and today . . . and wrapping each entry in a concisely presented fictional veneer to underline our ethical and moral points.
About the Author
Shortly after Don Aldrich and Carl Keeran met during unlikely circumstances, they collaborated on an extensive marketing/public relations project during which time they became fast friends, quickly understanding that they shared many core values, including innate orientations to honesty, integrity, and the desire to be of positive service to their fellow man, that we are all spiritual beings experiencing necessary life lessons in seemingly real but illusory settings en route to our way back to “God,” “God Consciousness,” or “All That Is”...
Don, inherently an intuitive visionary, is a perennially positive and caring soul whose energetic nature is expansive, finding outlets in such multiple expressions as philosophy, poetry, songwriting, and public speaking. As ideas and stories enter his consciousness, he grabs pen and paper and gets out of the way, as he dutifully records the streamed information. To date he has four previous books and an extended song catalog to his credit. He broadly considers himself to be a humanist (lover of people) and seeker of spiritual truth (collective love).
Equally positive and caring, Carl, a wordsmith by nature, tends to be more reserved, and is experienced in concisely, cleanly -- and often humorously -- presenting concepts in unambiguous fashion.
One of Don's impressions was to get Carl's perspective on some of Don's streamed story candidates. As Carl proceeded to offer detailed editing and story development suggestions, Don became convinced their joint efforts would produce a value-added product. To describe their working relationship in terms of the sport of curling, Don provides the necessary thrust and direction of the stone, while Carl provides the “sweeping” function (course correction) ahead of the stone to-better enable it to reach its objective.
“Feel Good Fables” represents Don and Carl's first collaborative authoring venture.