Your Life Support Columns

Esther Kim forfeited her chance to be a champion in order to claim an even sweeter victory – a victory of the heart. This is her story. Esther competed against her childhood friend, Kay Poe, in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Taekwondo. Esther lost the match, but she went on to win all her other fights, which still qualified her for the finals. … (read more…)

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Perhaps you can relate. One man was to meet his wife downtown and spend some time shopping with her. He waited patiently for 15 minutes. Then he waited impatiently for 15 minutes more. He didn’t have a way to contact her.

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A funny story has it that, late one night, a party-goer decided it would be best to walk home. He found a shortcut through a poorly lit cemetery and, in the darkness, stumbled into an open and particularly deep grave. He tried to climb out but the walls were too slippery. Again and again, he fell back into the grave. Finally, in exhaustion, he … (read more…)

Marlin Perkins, a long-time host of television’s “Wild Kingdom,” spent most of his life trying to put people on a first-name basis with animals. His wife Carol wanted to marry him so badly that she never let on that she did not fully share his passion for wildlife.

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I have a friend who learned something new about grizzly bears, or the brown bear, as it is often called. He recently traveled to Alaska and did some hiking. He was told to protect himself from brown bears by wearing tiny bells on his clothing. He said the bells warn away most bears. He was also cautioned to observe the ground on the trail, paying … (read more…)

An efficiency expert once concluded her lecture with the comment, “Please don’t try these techniques at home.” “Why not?” she was asked.

“I used to watch my husband prepare breakfast and wondered why he made so many trips to the table carrying only one item at a time,” she replied. “One day I asked him, ‘Wouldn’t it be … (read more…)

Two natural gas company service personnel, a senior training supervisor and a young trainee,were out checking meters in a suburban neighborhood. They parked their truck at the end of an alley and worked their way to the other end.

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You might remember comedian Yakov Smirnoff. When he first came to the U.S. from Russia, he was not prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says, “On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk – you add water and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice – you just add water and … (read more…)

When 19th Century clergyman Henry Ward Beecher was a young boy in school, he learned a powerful lesson in self-confidence. He was called to stand and recite in front of the class. He had hardly begun when the schoolteacher interrupted with an emphatic, “No!” The startled boy hesitantly began again. After a moment the teacher once more … (read more…)

Maybe you can relate. “Watch me dive off the high board, Dad,” my ten-year-old son called out. I looked up to the ten foot-high diving board and waited as he stood at the edge, stooped over, arms extended. He had jumped off the high board many times before, but now his nerve seemed to falter as he contemplated streaking through the air … (read more…)

The date is June 24, 1859. Suddenly, there he is, atop a hill overlooking the plain of Solferino. The troops of Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon) prepare for battle with the Austrians below, and Henri Dunant has a box-seat view from his place on the hill.

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