smiles & streetlights in perspective

Have you ever spent a whole day smiling? I don`t mean "grinning like an idiot",but rather smiling at people that you come in contact with throughout the day.Well, I`ve had to work on that in recent years and find it thoroughly en-joyable.

You see, when I was very young: pre-school through Kindergarten, 1st grade,2nd grade,and 3rd grade,(which was a big chunk of my life at the time), I wasextremely Myopic.

It was a time in which "child developement" was not a particularily importantdemand on a parent , not as researched a subject as it is today. Kids werehere or there, a nice thing to have around, but not a terribly interesting subjectto the public in general. My folks never seemed to notice that I had a visualproblem and I sure didn`t know it either.

Looking back now though, there certainly seemed to be some strong indicationsof "some kind" of problem; such as the fact that I certainly seemed to be worriedabout the "Moon". It was so gigantic! ...and it actually turned out that the "Moon"that I referenced was a streetlight which shone through our frontroom window atnight. At one time , being in a department store with my mother, I stood by amannequin for a long time, wondering why my mommy wouldn`t speak to me.

There were a lot of these types of instances. It all made me quite anxious and in-secure and be fore long my face kind of froze in that expression. Since then I`ve alwayshad that kind of...serious...almost stern look.

I eventually was introduced to eyeglasses. That helped, however I then realized thatthat people actually looked at me or , God forbid, watched me....and my face just gotworse. It not only was that, but those darn glasses attracted balls on the playgroundat school. I heard about that...a lot.

So you see, I have had to work on a friendly presentation by smiling. It`s a greatthing when used correctly.For example: you don`t smile when someone is tellingyou about their pet Poodle`s sprained ankle or that someone`s sweet, favorite AuntMarigold just died. Rather,just regularsmiling at your co-workers, or at the clerk in a store, or a parking attendant.

You can give a lift to someone else by smiling as well as a lift to yourself. It`s a short mo-ment of fellowship with mankind...so SMILE! It puts things in a proper perspective.