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"Hold this Thought" is a daily, 1-minute thought from literature, history, or culture designed to inspire reflection and conversation. We're located in Alaska - and are broadcast over KSKA public radio - but we'd like to include your voices, too. Please submit your Thoughts for consideration.
So start your day with something interesting and curious and continue it over conversation - either here or with the people nearby. A little more thoughtfulness in our day couldn't hurt.
Posted At : July 24, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories:
Fiction
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Taken from "To Build a Fire" by Jack London.
Read by Bruce Bartley: "Preparation is the key to survival in the Far North, and sometimes one mistake is all it takes to die." Bruce supports his volunteer habit at the Chugiak Volunteer Fire Department by working for the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. Favorite website: firehouse.com.
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In "To Build a Fire," Jack London captures the fear of freezing:
"The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find out where his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the mittened hands against his sides. He did this for five minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up to the surface to put a stop to his shivering. But now sensation was aroused in the hands. He had an impression that they hung like weights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried to run the impression down, he could not find it.
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Then the thought came to him that the frozen portions of his body must be extending. He tried to keep this thought down, to forget it, to think of something else; he was aware of the panicky feeling that it caused, and he was afraid of the panic. ...
He was losing his battle with the frost."
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Posted At : July 23, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories:
Fiction
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Excerpted from Away by Amy Bloom, published by Random House and used by permission.
Read by Irene Bortnick: "Lillian fled the pogroms in Russia, as did my grandparents. However, while Lillian made her way to New York, my grandparents sought a better life in South Africa." As a young child growing up in South Africa, Irene would be so lost in a book that she would not hear her name being called. She teaches kindergarten and loves reading to and with children. Irene checks the municipal library website often.
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In Amy Bloom's novel Away, Lillian forges on despite repeated hardship and failure:
"It's not that prayer seems like a bad idea out here. It seems like a good and optimistic idea, but Lillian does not believe in anything like God. ... Lillian believes in luck and hunger (and greed, which is really just the rich man's hunger...). She believes in fear as a motivator and she believes in curiosity (hers should have shrunk to nothing by now but feeds on something Lillian cannot make sense of) and she believes in will. It is so frail and delicate at night that she can't even imagine the next morning, but it is so wide and binding by the middle of the next day that she cannot even remember the terrible night. It is as if she gives birth every day."
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Posted At : July 22, 2008 1:00 AM
Related Categories:
Outdoors
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Taken from Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor, copyright 1974, and used by permission of Marian Reiner for the author
Contributed and read by Sherri Douglas: "Our home is full of rocks." Originally from Illinois, Sherri is a
25-year resident of Anchorage, where she lives with her husband,
daughter and dog, Rosie. She spends her days working with youth in the
Anchorage Public Library and her nights mostly reading.
She'd like you to look at: http://www.charitynavigator.org.
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In Everybody Needs a Rock, Byrd Baylor provides ten rules for finding a rock:
"Not just any rock. I mean a special rock that you find yourself and keep as long as you can -- maybe forever. ...
Don't get a rock that is too big. You'll always be sorry. It won't fit your hand right and it won't fit your pocket.
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The size must be perfect. It has to feel easy in your hand when you close your fingers over it. It has to feel jumpy in your pocket when you run. Some people touch a rock a thousand times a day. There aren't many things that feel as good as a rock -- if the rock is perfect.
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Don't ask anybody to help you choose. I've seen a lizard pick one rock out of a desert full of rocks and go sit there alone. I've seen a snail pass up twenty rocks and spend all day getting to the one it wanted. You have to make up your own mind. You'll know."
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Taken from A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, published by Broadway Books.
Read by Geo McCann, Outreach Director for Trailside Discovery, a program of the Alaska Center for the Environment: "Humankind's never-ending attempt to connect with, conserve, or even conquer the natural world has always intrigued me." Trailside Discovery is ACE's environmental education program for youth. For quite some time, Geo has been intrigued by how humans, especially children, interact with the natural world. He recommends this website: http://www.childrenandnature.org. |
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In A Walk in the Woods, author Bill Bryson describes the months he spent hiking the Appalachian Trail. Finally, they reach the end of their adventure:
"So do you feel bad about leaving the trail?" Katz asked after a time.
I thought for a moment, unsure. I had come to realize that I didn't have any feelings towards the AT that weren't confused and contradictory. I was weary of the trail, but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods but admired their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts. I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off. "I don't know," I said. "Yes and no, I guess...."
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Excerpted from "Teaching People to Give," an article by Edgar Carlson.
Contributed and read by Peggy Kugel. Peggy is a wife, mother, attorney, volunteer, organizer, reader, Girl
Scout, crafter, volkswalker, orienteer, and geocacher. She has lived in
Anchorage for 30+ years and donates to the Alaska Run for Women. |
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Edgar M. Carlson was president of Minnesota's Gustavus Adolphus College in the 1960s. His comments apply to all institutions -- not just colleges -- and are just as relevant today.
"If a college has not succeeded in persuading its students to give after four years of experience on its campus, after having been subjected to the whole educational program of the institution, it has failed in its mission. If it trains people to get, but fails to train them to give, it really has no good reason for existence. It must be the hallmark of the alumni of our kind of institution that they are ‘giving' people. That applies to everything about them -- their vocational service, their family life, their church activity, and their community relations. ... It is in teaching people to give -- of themselves, their efforts, their devotion and their means -- that colleges like ours really have their mission."
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