The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being. She said, ‘Hi handsome. My name is Rose.. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?’I laughed and enthusiastically responded, ‘Of course you may!’ and she gave me a giant squeeze..

‘Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?’ I asked.

She jokingly replied, ‘I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…’

‘No seriously,’ I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

‘I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!’ she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this ‘time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience with me..

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, ‘I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.’

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, ‘We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets..’

She concluded her speech by courageously singing ‘The Rose.’

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those months ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

 

“I think one of our biggest problems today is that we have so few people who think like Will Rogers.”
-Sheila Tolley-

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.”

“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people that they don’t like.”

“There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

“Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.”

“There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.”

“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.”

“I never met a man that I didn’t like.”

“Rumor travels faster, but it doesn’t stay put as long as truth.”

“Common sense ain’t common.”

“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.”

“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.”

“Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.”

“Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.”

“Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.”

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”

“The minute you read something that you can’t understand, you can almost be sure that it was drawn up by a lawyer.”

“We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.”

“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”

“The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.”

“If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of Congress?”

“If stupidity got us in this mess, how come it can’t get us out.”

“A fool and his money are soon elected.”

“I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”

“I’m not a real movie star. I’ve still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.”

“Always drink upstream from the herd.”

“The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.”

“If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.”

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”

“The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket.”

“The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”

“Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved.”

“Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can’t buy enough to eat.”

“It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.”

“An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.”

“You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people.”

“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

“The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”

“If you feel the urge, don’t be afraid to go on a wild goose chase. What do you think wild geese are for anyway?”

“The problem ain’t what people know. It’s what people know that ain’t so that’s the problem.”

“Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re actually paying for.”

“Buy land. They ain’t making any more of the stuff.”

“There are men running governments who shouldn’t be allowed to play with matches.”

“What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.”

“There is no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”

“The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.”

“Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago.”

“It is better for someone to think you’re a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

A GREAT ROAST!

Do yourself a favor…Allocate a little time to yourself…Grab the beverage of your choice, relax and enjoy some real talent and laughter. It is no problem for me. I always considered Dean Martin a very handsome man and a great singer. His hits go on and on, songs like That Little Old Wine Drinker Me, Everybody Loves Somebody, That’s Amore, etc..
-Sheila Tolley-